Brian Bennett: If TCF isn't full of Gopher fans vs UW, Minn can't complain about bowl

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TCF=UnitedWeStand said:
The people who need to show up are the folks with seats on the home side of TCF. Not sure if they're hanging out in the Club room or what, but everybody points the finger at the students when in reality, the seat back sections on the home side (especially in the upper deck) seem to be nearly as glaringly empty as the upper deck of the student section.
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A lot of those outdoor club seats are empty because nobody bought them.
 

Quite a few $500 seats(entire rows) in 211 are vacant and only filled when an opposing team travels and buys them as singles(IA & NE both).
 

ruppertflywheel said:
Fill him full of hot chocolate and buy him a bunch of stuff at
Goldy's Locker!
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Exactly!! I took my 5 month old to the game last week, which wasn't 29, but that wind was pretty cold. Layers of clothes and a blanket and life was good. It's a great excuse to buy some mittens and a hat from the bookstore and load em up with hot chocolate in those awesome cups. Plus it will be a great experience for him when we take back the Axe.
 

More aggravating is sitting down and always seeing especially Iowa, NDSU, and Wisconsin fans in what you know are Gopher season ticket holders' seats because they often have the same Gopher fans in them. Don't know if these people give them away, scalp them, or go through a broker but it seems like our obnoxious neighboring fans get seats all over the place, at least close enough to me to confirm my low opinion of them. Not sure if I saw anyone in Penn State gear sitting around us.
 


If you ever wanted to know how Nebraska developed there traveling fans? Oh sure all the winning, but heck other teams have won and don't. Some don't win and travel well. What gives? Nebraska got started with Devaney winning. At the time a former husker All American Bobby Reynolds class of 52 was starting a travel business in Lincoln. He saw the fan support, saw that many traveled to Las Vegas in the winter. When the Big 8 made the deal with the Orange Bowl, he began putting travel packages together. Miami in December. But who were his base. There were professionals from Omaha and Lincoln. But there were also Big Farms, Ranchers, Teachers, who had that time of year open. He was booking trips a year in advance. The anticipation of the Oklahoma game was the key and the trip to Miami. That was the origin, and when the Bowls expanded with the winning. New Orleans, Orlando, you get the picture. The Alumni Association got involved and then you saw alumni, friends of alumni traveling not only from Nebraska, but California, Arizona, New York State. It took about 5 years to get it rolling. Ever wonder about Wisconsin? Where do you think they got there traveling idea from Barry Alvarez who played in those games. Saw the fan support first hand.

The thing that slays me, is we cannot get this off the ground. What Bobby Reynolds did is certainly not beyond the scope of either The Carlson Companies, the Minnesota Alumni Association. It seems it always falls to Creative Charters, to put together something at the last minute.
 

TCF=UnitedWeStand said:
It's funny to me that Bennett points out we don't travel well, but is it not a consensus media opinion that we've been basically terrible for forty years? So how does anyone really know if we'd travel to a good bowl game when we haven't been to one?
I thought we traveled pretty well to the UNLV game last year - I don't think 10K fans for a first game of the season against a dog team was too bad of a showing.
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THANK YOU!!
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Weather.com say 29 for the high and 10% chance of rain. I have to make the call on the 6 year old coming with me.
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Took my 6 year old to the IU game. Not 29, but cold enough. Load him up with gopher gear, hand warmers, a blanket, and hot popcorn or hot chocolate. Staying warm is oddly part of the fun.
 

One of the reason you see empty seats is because during cold weather many fans stay in the concessetion area. As you know our stadium is designed to see the field even from this area.
I've seen people lined up 2 deep all around watching the game and leaving their seats unoccupied.
 



There were no excuses for not selling out the Penn State game (deer opener is NEVER a valid excuse). For the team to be in search of a fourth straight Big Ten victory in front of a less-than-capacity crowd reflected poorly on the Minnesota fan base...not that there is much more room for that perception to sink.

But despite all of the struggles we have to get people interested in the football team, I have to wonder why we can't have a bowl game take a chance on us just once. Northwestern has an embarrassingly small fan base, and look at the bowls they have played in over the last decade: Sun, Alamo, Outback, Gator, Texas, Heart of Dallas. Michigan State doesn't travel particularly well either, yet they get treated like college football royalty.

Minnesota had a very strong contingent - much better than Texas Tech - at the 2006 Insight Bowl. Much of that was due to the large snowbird population in Arizona. Otherwise, we usually travel about 3,000 fans to these bowl games. If the Gophers were selected for the Gator Bowl, I have little faith Minnesotans would actually travel in droves to Jacksonville for the first New Year's Day bowl in more than a half-century. Maybe we'd get a decent turnout from the Florida snowbirds, but still not enough to change our reputation. To me, the bottom line is it will take that special Rose Bowl season, like Wisconsin had in 1993, to get people on board...and then it will take continued success to keep them there.
 


For what it's worth, I'm an out of state fan and I went on Gophersports.com this morning (11/14) to check for tickets.

They are still available for the game on the 23rd... which I understand to have some meaning.
 

I hope the game is at 2:30 so we can get all lubed up and get crazy!!!

It'll be packed, and I bet it will be about 85-90 percent MN fans.
 



I had an interesting conversation while walking to the stadium for the Nebraska game from our lot on the West Bank. It was with a Gopher fan who happens to live in Iowa City who came up for the game. He was of the opinion that it will be next to impossible to have as rabid a fan base here as you see in places like Iowa, Nebraska, etc. because, as he put it, "when you live in Iowa City, what else are you going to do if you don't follow the football team?".

I think a similar situation adds to the "Minnesota doesn't travel well" problem we seem to have. If I lived in some of the cities that have fans that do travel well, I'd probably be looking for any excuse to get out of town as well. Sorry if that comes off as snobbish, but I think it's true.
 

Can't blame him for saying that. The Insight bowl vs. Iowa State a few years ago wasn't that great of a showing, was it? Granted, we were on a 6 game losing streak. Anyway, I think that in time, we'll start to travel better.
 

HopHead said:
I had an interesting conversation while walking to the stadium for the Nebraska game from our lot on the West Bank. It was with a Gopher fan who happens to live in Iowa City who came up for the game. He was of the opinion that it will be next to impossible to have as rabid a fan base here as you see in places like Iowa, Nebraska, etc. because, as he put it, "when you live in Iowa City, what else are you going to do if you don't follow the football team?".

I think a similar situation adds to the "Minnesota doesn't travel well" problem we seem to have. If I lived in some of the cities that have fans that do travel well, I'd probably be looking for any excuse to get out of town as well. Sorry if that comes off as snobbish, but I think it's true.
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I think this, combined with the fact we haven't been in a top bowl in decades, is the reason the fan base is disinterested and doesn't follow the team that closely, other than the diehards. When you have 4 pro sports teams and a bunch of other stuff to do in town, when the local college team is either terrible or mediocre you just find other stuff to do. Hopefully that will slowly change (I think it will if Kill keeps building the program) but it's unrealistic to expect the switch to flip this year already.
 

The vast majority of bowls exist only for commerce. Heck, the writers didn't name a national champion after the bowl games until the 1970 season with the coaches needing a few seasons to join them. The call to do so afterwards came from increased attention to the bowls as more than winter postseason fun and due to some national champs, such as the 1960 Gophers, losing their bowl game. So the major bowls once were as meaningless as the minor bowls at one point.

Today a game like the Texas Bowl or even the Gator Bowl needs to ensure not only good numbers of fans traveling from the participating schools, but also ticket buying locals and what you'd call TV fans, namely the guy who's never been to Michigan but is a diehard Wolverines fan via their success and TV exposure. The Gophers, sadly, are pretty undesirable on this front. We have no record for bringing fans in big numbers. We don't take over the town like Huskers or Buckeyes fans have, or even the likes of Iowa or Wisconsin. We might be a curiosity for locals due to the sudden rise and the Kill story, but we have no TV fans to speak of and no longterm rep or star players that will hook neutrals.

One other thing that also works against us on the traveling fans front was our Mason era bowl experience. We made the Sun Bowl twice, both times against Oregon, and three times went to Arizona. By trip number three to Arizona, it was "been there, done that" for many fans who otherwise might have gone to San Antonio enthusiastically or elsewhere. For that matter, El Paso's appeal the second time around was dented by the lack of a new opponent. Even if we beat Wisconsin, I expect the Gophers to get passed over somehow on a desirable bowl and a loss to Wisconsin, with a win at Michigan State realistically unlikely, could send us right back to Houston which won't likely be a popular destination two years in a row after the heightened expecations.
 

Houston is a sh-t hole. Lubbock, Texas is about a drive and a nine iron from Houston, so they brought between 20-25
thousand fans. If I remember correctly we sold around 3,000 tickets through the U including staff, etc. 7-8 thousand fans in the lower sections. He didn't know about the upper level. For Houston, I thought that was decent.[/QUOTE]

I'd re-check your map Ruppy.

Lubbock is about 9 hours from Houston, so it is almost is much as challenge as driving from Minneapolis to Nashville, which 25,000 Gopher fans neglected to do on three occasions.
 

oak_street1981 said:
Houston is a sh-t hole. Lubbock, Texas is about a drive and a nine iron from Houston, so they brought between 20-25
thousand fans. If I remember correctly we sold around 3,000 tickets through the U including staff, etc. 7-8 thousand fans in the lower sections. He didn't know about the upper level. For Houston, I thought that was decent.
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I'd re-check your map Ruppy.

Lubbock is about 9 hours from Houston, so it is almost is much as challenge as driving from Minneapolis to Nashville, which 25,000 Gopher fans neglected to do on three occasions.[/QUOTE]

It is 531 miles and a straight shot. Like I said, a drive and a 9 iron. BTW, it is 13 hours to Nashville.
Maybe try comparing apples to apples instead of shooting from the hip.
 


MNVCGUY said:
You are correct about the schools being on the hook for the tickets regardless but the bowls still want to see those tickets actually get used by the fan base. Beyond attendance at the game itself there is the local impact of the fans coming into the city where the game is held so the "Gopher fans don't travel well" stigma is a legit reason to pass us over. The thing of course that no one knows for sure is if they didn't pass us over would our fans show?
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And therein lies the Catch-22. Gophers get passed over by lesser deserving teams, and then when the fanbase is disappointed in the lesser game and don't show up to the lesser game in droves, then it just reinforces the notion that the fanbase doesn't travel.

The idea that the Gophers don't travel well overall is hogwash. Of the bigger/best opposing crowds I saw at Beaver Stadium, some of those were maroon and gold (Mason era). And when they came to PSU, they were out on the town the night before and night of. Of course, helmet schools like Nebraska, OSU, Alabama traveled very well, and better than the Gophers. But some of the whole "travel" thing is pretty unfair right from the start due to location...if driving, Minnesotans have the farthest to travel in the B1G, on average, than all other B1G schools except Penn State (and soon Rutgers/Maryland will replace Penn State from the eastern side).

The biggest thing going against the "travel well" part is the fact that our own stadium doesn't sell out consistently. The other perceptions are derivatives of that fact.
 

i remember the stadium opener against air force, that was just magical with all the gold in the crowd and by far the most fun i have ever had at a gopher sporting event, since then TCF has never came close to that game, the game after(cal) i was pretty disappointed to see the attendance, a large part was that the students crammed in during that game which made it appear to more empty but still, i wish every game could look like this, and i don't know if it ever will, even if win more
www.panoramas.com.UMN1.jpg

TCF-Bank-Stadium.jpeg
 

I was VERY disappointed in last week's crowd. Not only wasn't the upper deck in the student section not even close to being full, but it was obvious that many season ticket holders stayed home to watch it on TV. And that was for a HUGE game. Bennett is absolutely spot on. Our fans and students are not helping our bowl prospects. This will be the biggest game since the Michigan debacle, some 10 yrs ago or so, and arguable the biggest game with Wisconsin since the 60's. If we don't have every seat filled, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
 

go4rob said:
I was VERY disappointed in last week's crowd. Not only wasn't the upper deck in the student section not even close to being full, but it was obvious that many season ticket holders stayed home to watch it on TV. And that was for a HUGE game. Bennett is absolutely spot on. Our fans and students are not helping our bowl prospects. This will be the biggest game since the Michigan debacle, some 10 yrs ago or so, and arguable the biggest game with Wisconsin since the 60's. If we don't have every seat filled, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
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I don't think as many people stayed home as people think. There is a large number of people that watch from the concourse and open end that makes it look worse than it is. It's nowhere where we need it to be but not as bad as it might seem.

I think the U is having trouble moving with the outdoor club seats though. Not sure what can be done other than finding corporations to buy them but if those are given away it doesn't really solve the problem.
 

Tim Riggins said:
I don't think as many people stayed home as people think. There is a large number of people that watch from the concourse and open end that makes it look worse than it is. It's nowhere where we need it to be but not as bad as it might seem.

I think the U is having trouble moving with the outdoor club seats though. Not sure what can be done other than finding corporations to buy them but if those are given away it doesn't really solve the problem.
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All box, loge, and indoor and outdoor club seats are sold out. Have been since day one. Not reported as season tickets sold.

All parking spaces in the lots around the stadium, including lot 37 are sold out.

It's not the dedicated fan, it's the "fan" who only goes if the team is good and the weather is in the 60's.

We watched hundreds of fan leave the lower bowl and halftime. The dome pussified people for nearly 30 years. It may take 10-15 to bring them back to real life.
 

I get it that the bowls want to sell tickets. It is what it is. I would LOVE to go to the bowl game this year - but I think the average Minnesota fan has a lot more sports interests than fans of other markets. The bowl game trip would cost more than my football season tickets and more than my Twins season tickets.
I'll still try to swing it, but there is only so much money to go around for sports tickets - or at least that's what my wife says.
 

highwayman said:
All box, loge, and indoor and outdoor club seats are sold out. Have been since day one. Not reported as season tickets sold.
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Wrong, just the loge boxes are sold out. Plenty of suites and indoor/outdoor club seats are available on a single game basis, per link. I picked up a couple of outdoor club seats for the Wisconsin game, and the rep I talked to told me I had plenty of seats to choose from.

https://www.goldengopherfund.com/On...ticle_id=36526B9B-A9FF-4CD5-A224-A455229E0682
 

Say what you want, he's right. It's put up or shut up for Gopher fans. People like to say cold weather favors us, but I hear a lot of born and raised Minnesotans still say "it's too cold" to go to the Gopher game.
 

On 10/18 2003, a Gopher team with only one loss, ranked inside the top 20 in the country, and a team who still controlled its own destiny in the Big Ten with just a handful of games left in the season, drew (a generous) 30,000 fans for a home game at the climate-controlled Metrodome against Michigan State. This season came after the Gophers had three bowl appearances in the last four years.

For those of you who think we don't draw fans because our team is never in title contention, think again.
For those of you who think we don't draw fans because we aren't a nationally ranked team, think again.
For those of you who think we don't draw fans because we can't string together winning seasons, think again.
For those of you who think we don't draw fans because of the weather, think again.

Bennett is right on the money. We don't draw well to our own important home games, and we haven't ever drawn well to a bowl since 1960. Can you blame the bowl committees?

Man, this board is delusional sometimes.
 

It is 531 miles and a straight shot. Like I said, a drive and a 9 iron. BTW, it is 13 hours to Nashville.
Maybe try comparing apples to apples instead of shooting from the hip.[/QUOTE]

response to Ruppert:

Okay Rupie,unlike you, I did not have 6 foot 4, 240 pound security guard to escort me through the very dangerous cities Madison, and Gary IN so I had to take a few back roads but I was able to drive to Clarksville TN in about 10.5 hours several times. I guess Nashville and Clarksville are not exactly right next to each other so you win the "apple" point.

I guess it was a driver and 9 iron (Lubbock to Houston) rather than a 3 wood (to avoid all those hooligans in Madison that would assault me and you!) and a 4 iron to Nashville. You win again Rupie! I now know that Houston is right next to Lubbock and is an easy trip for any Tech fan just like Minneapolis to Bloomington Indiana is a real easy road trip for any Gopher fan.

With the success of the Kill program, and the new info from you about geography I expect to see 25,000 Gopher fans in Bloomington next time we go there. Maybe we can get 40,000 to Evanston next time since that is just a Driver away from Minneapolis!
 

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